Reconstruction can be perceived to be an era where all actions made abided the documents made earlier in history and it could be truly taken that way when the North was still in the South. As soon as the Northern troops were pulled from the South, it went to the way it had been and some of the decisions ended up going against the amendments and other written rules. In the Constitution it is written “All men are created equal” if this was true then why were black codes established in the South to restrict the rights that African Americans were given? The codes ensured that even though slavery was abolished, African Americans were still available for labor. According to History.com, many states required blacks to sign yearly labor contracts and if they refused, it resulted in either arrest, fines or forced labor. According to PBS.com in 1871, the government passed the Ku Klux Klan Act, which gave the government to take action on the terrorist groups. The Ku Klux Klan started off as just former confederates and eventually turned into a terrorist group full of people that believed in white supremacy. They felt the only way to show the supremacy was brutally torturing and or killing African Americans because of their race. Though the act on the KKK was created when the Panic of 1873 occurred, all attention from the North made its way …show more content…
One of those main “attempts” was sharecropping, where the whites would give the African Americans a portion of land for them to be able to grow crops. It can be taken as “Oh, that’s nice of the South,” but a person with some common sense would realize that there has to be a catch. The catch of that deal was that the African Americans had to give half of the crops to the actual landowner and usually the money made went to pay off debts. There really wasn’t income out of sharecropping unless the African American found some way around the whole
Although slavery was declared over after the passing of the thirteenth amendment, African Americans were not being treated with the respect or equality they deserved. Socially, politically and economically, African American people were not being given equal opportunities as white people. They had certain laws directed at them, which held them back from being equal to their white peers. They also had certain requirements, making it difficult for many African Americans to participate in the opportunity to vote for government leaders. Although they were freed from slavery, there was still a long way to go for equality through America’s reconstruction plan.
Reconstruction is during which the United States began to rebuild the Southern society after they lost to the civil war. It lasted from 1865 to 1877, and it was initiated by President Lincoln until his assassination in 1865. President Johnson continued Lincoln’s agenda to continue the Reconstruction. Throughout the process of Reconstruction, one of its main purpose was to guarantees for equal rights for all people, especially for the African Americans. Even though slavery was abolished after the civil war, many Southerners were still against the idea of equal rights for all black people, such as the Republicans.
Reconstruction was when the federal government was setting the rules that would let the rebellious Southerners back into the union. The goal of Reconstruction was to restore the union so the South would not secede again. In order for Lincoln to do that, he 'd have to make a few new and changes to the laws so that the South would want to come back serenely. One of the biggest things he and Congress created was the 13th amendment which would completely abolish slavery and that was the beginning of restoration. But were African Americans really free?
Although slavery had been outlawed by the Thirteenth Amendment, it continued in many southern states. In an effort to get around laws passed by Congress, southern states created black codes, which were discriminatory state laws which aimed to keep white supremacy in place. While the codes granted certain freedoms to African Americans, their primary purpose was to fulfill an important economic need in the postwar South. To maintain agricultural production, the South had relied on slaves to work the land. Black codes were restrictive laws designed to limit the freedom of African Americans and ensure their ties to the land.
Founded in 1866, the (KKK) extended into virtually each southern state by 1870 and have become a vehicle for white southern resistance to the Republican Party’s Reconstruction-era policies aimed toward establishing political and economic equality for blacks. Its members waged associate underground campaign of intimidation and violence directed at white and black Republican leaders. Congress passed legislation designed to curb KKK, the organization saw its primary goal “the reestablishment of white supremacy” fulfilled through Democratic victories in state legislatures across the South within the decennary. Once an amount of decline, white Protestant nativist teams revived the KKK within the early twentieth century, burning crosses and staging
Sources Analysis Freedom During the Reconstruction era, the idea of freedom could have many different meanings. Everyday factors that we don't often think about today such as the color of our skin, where we were born, and whether or not we own land determined what limitations were placed on the ability to live our life to the fullest. To dig deeper into what freedom meant for different individuals during this time period, I analyzed three primary sources written by those who experienced this first hand. These included “Excerpts from The Black Codes of Mississippi” (1865), “Jourdan Anderson to his old master” (1865), and “Testimony on the Ku Klux Klan in Congressional Hearing” (1872).
In addition, it failed because whites refused to accept the change of freed blacks and they failed to treat them as equals. Freed slaves and their descendants were forced to live a limited life full of rules
The Bureau could not provide African Americans with land, but it did contribute to education. Formerly enslaved African Americans were educated with the help of Northern charities. This was a positive outcome during
24 November 2015 The Real Death of Reconstruction There is no easy way to decide who can be held accountable for the end of the Reconstruction Era. Attempts to rebuild the South ceased to exist in 1877, just over ten years after the Confederacy surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant in Appomattox Court House, Virginia. It seemed as though everything was on the right track in 1876, the one hundred year anniversary of The United States. That was, however, until the South waged conflict against black and white citizens of The United States.
Although many attempts were made to prioritize freedom and equality for all, these values were undermined by racist Southerners who wouldn’t accept equality. In the end, Reconstruction had failed and former slaves endured another hardship akin to slavery. However, Reconstruction still could have prospered. There are multiple events that, if they had occurred, Reconstruction would not have failed. For example, had the government continued to fund the Freedmen’s Bureau, then the South would have legislated their discriminatory laws much later, if not at all.
In the period of reconstruction, there was a lack of racial equality and racism towards blacks. The 13th amendment abolished slavery, with the exception of allowing it as a punishment for a crime (“Thirteenth Amendment” 19). Although it abolished slavery, there was still a lack of equality towards blacks. The Black Codes were state laws in the south, that were implemented in 1866. These laws limited the rights of African Americans and were
The reconstruction period was a failure because African Americans, mainly males, were not treated with equality although the constitution said that the they were free and had the right to vote, be educated and had the right to liberty, life and the pursuit to happiness. Organizations, like the KKK, were created to harm freed slaves and their families. Laws were created such as the Black Codes restricting former slaves from their rights. African Americans endured a lot of violence over the years. “In Grayson, Texas, a white man and two friends murdered three former slaves because the wanted to ‘ thin the niggers out and drive them to their hole’”.
The Ku Klux Klan was founded in 1866 by former Confederate veterans in Pulaski, Tennessee. Ku Klan is derivative of the Greek word “kyklos,” meaning circle. The creation of the Ku Klux Klan coincided with the second phase of post-Civil War Reconstruction, which was organized mostly by members of the Republican Party in Congress. Klan members wore white sheets or robes and masks to cover their identities. They used to march and ride horses at night threatening former slaves and make them believe that former Confederates are coming to reclaim their land.
The reconstruction was said to have brought a change. However, Newly free slaves faced many challenges, and whites in the south saw blacks as way less than they did before. Black codes were introduced as a way to give people of color freedom in a constitutional form. They were unique to southern states and they each had their own variation of them. It was a way to restrict the black labor force and freed people as much of slave status as possible.
The Ku Klux Klan first emerged in Pulaski, Tennessee following the Civil War. As we know today, the mere mention of the Klan triggers fear as the KKK is known for its various tactics of violence that came in the form if lynchings, murders, and mutilations. Following their emergence, the KKK were quickly symbolized and portrayed as the protectors of the South, following the defeat of the Southern states in the Civil War and the beginning of the period of Reconstruction by the federal government (Gurr, 1989, p. 132). During the 1920s, the KKK achieved its greatest political success and growth outside of the South. During this period, the membership of the Klan heavily expanded to the states of Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Oklahoma, Colorado, and Oregon, to which the KKK obtained two to two and one-half million members at its apex.